Loxley’s Restaurant in Lancaster, PA is built around a tree.

You can eat in the treehouse,

where kids can make their own pizza.

Afterwards you can feed the fish.

Nearby is the Dutch Apple Theatre

where Pinkalicious The Musical returns this summer

back by popular demand July 6-31, 2012.

Columbia, PA in Lancaster County

where you can visit the Turkey Hill Experience

and the National Watch and Clock Museum.

At the Turkey Hill Experience,

you can learn about different types of tea,

make up your own ice cream flavor,

design the packaging and film the commercial,

or milk a mechanical cow,

and eat in the cafe.

At the National Watch and Clock Museum,

you can view the largest clock collection in North America.

Read about it here: A Day Away at the National Watch & Clock Museum.

Nearby is Hinkle’s Pharmacy and restaurant and gift shop,

which opened in 1893, and made and sold the first paint-on Easter egg dye.

Doc Hinkle’s Egg Dye is still available there.

The High Line is a trail built on an old freight rail line that is elevated above the streets of the West Side of lower Manhattan. The first section, from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street, opened in 2009, and the second section to 30th Street opened in 2011. A third section to 34th Street is planned.

Click here for a printable map and brochure of the High Line.

Read more about the High Line in National Geographic’s article:

Miracle Above Manhattan: New Yorkers can float over busy streets in an innovative park.

The recently opened Jane’s Carousel in the Brooklyn Bridge Park of the DUMBO section of Brooklyn combines the Youngstown, Ohio charm of Idora Park (where the merry-go-round horses came from) with the skyline vistas of New York City.

Kathryn Stockett said she loved to read as a child but the school librarian limited her to a shelf of books for her grade. So she read her sister’s books and then her mother’s which led to her being expelled in 6th grade from the First Presbyterian Day School for reading Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying.

She said she received 60 rejection letters from agents and wondered what would have happened if she had given up after 40 rejections, or even after 60. She began writing the book in the voice of her family’s maid Demetrie. Then when her character Aibileen started talking in a sassy voice unlike Demetrie’s personality, she created Minny. Finally she added the character Skeeter. She said her New York editor hired a copy editor in New Jersey who edited out the dialect from the book. Then she found a copy editor in New Orleans who got it.

She said the first idea for the bookcover which she loved showed a small white hand in a black hand. She said after several months the painting with birds was chosen for the bookcover because it had nothing to do with the book, although she said she gets fan emails analyzing the meaning of the cover as it relates to the characters in the book.

She said the British edition “The Color of Feelings” has done well but in Amsterdam where the title was translated into a play on words “The Maid’s Lacy Apron” sales have lagged.

She said she does not plan to write a sequel and is instead working on a book about women living in the 1920′s.

To read more about the event, click on the Reading Eagle newspaper article here.

The festival includes numerous literary events in the greater Reading Pennsylvania area all scheduled during the month of October. The events are held at libraries, universities, bookstores, and restaurants, such as The Wise Owl Book Store, the Speckled Hen, the GoggleWorks Cafe, the Nolde Forest Environmental Educational Center and, of course, at the Pagoda.

The Central Market in downtown, Lancaster – the country’s oldest farmer’s market

Lancaster Science Factory

Hands-on House Children’s Museum of Lancaster

Dutch Wonderland

Carmen And Dave’s Creamery

Joe’s Famous American Kitchen

More fun places nearby for kids to explore…

Smithsonian Carousel at the National Mall

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

and the National Museum of American Indian

which has the Mitsitam Cafe where you can enjoy

a bowl of chilled beet soup or chilled cantaloup soup.

Happy July 4th!